Aral Balkan

We're relocating to Brighton tomorrow so things are very hectic around here (more than usual, if that's possible!)

I'm very excited about the move as I absolutely *adore* Brighton. It has an amazing vibe and some great people. On the whole, it has a more "relaxed" feel to it than London. (And since it's only 50 minutes away by train, we can pop up anytime!)

Our new place is near the North Lanes -- a wonderful part of town with lots of organic cafes and even an organic supermarket 5 minutes away (and, of course, the sea is just a short walk away.)

The broadband connection has been disconnected and I'm writing this on my 3G card. Now that its content restrictions have been removed -- after a terse phone call to Vodafone support this morning -- I can even partake in my guilty pleasure of surfing Flash blogs without being blocked!

As I was saying, it's a very hectic time: Optimizer has just launched to some great reviews (and we are in the process of finishing off the online key generator module for the Ariaware Portal so our first customers -- yes, it's already started flying off the shelves! -- can create their permanent keys.)

A note for those of you won copies of Optimizer at the London MMUG and at Flastival -- we will be mailing out your Ariaware Portal logins within this week so you can generate your permanent keys. In the meanwhile, please make sure you've downloaded the Trial :)

Did I mention the word "hectic"? :) I'm also heading out to Belgium and the Netherlands at the end of the week both for a little business with a client and to speak the two MMUGs. Then, it's off to South Africa where I'll be giving a talk at the MMUG and also teaching a three-day workshop on Best Practices Pattern-Based Flash Development. I'm also going to be presenting a seminar and doing a workshop for some university students while there. It looks like I'll be able to catch my breath during December before the onslaught of conferences kicks in.

Talking about conferences: I'm going to be presenting at MX-Europe in London in January, MXDU (this just got confirmed!) in Australia in February and Flash Europe in March.